The Truth About Women, Sex, and Alcohol

For most couples, alcohol is either the ultimate confidence booster, guaranteed to liven up the action between the sheets, or the death knell of a promising encounter, leaving one or both of you too stewed for love. But the real interaction between alcohol and sex is more nuanced, says SUNY at Potsdam sociologist David Hanson, Ph. D., the author of Preventing Alcohol Abuse. For instance, some of alcohol's apparent aphrodisiac effects may be there because we want them to be. "Alcohol does have a real physical impact, but there's also a big aspect of expectancy," Hanson says. "What we think is going to happen while we're under the influence is likely to happen."

Researchers say people assign too much blame to alcohol for the way their sex lives play out. They also give it too much credit. We've cleared away the misconceptions about alcohol and sex to help ensure that this vaunted social lubricant will enhance your love life—not destroy it.

She Wears Beer Goggles, Too There's a gender divide in the way partiers experience the beer-goggles effect. Both men and women, once they've knocked back a few, perceive potential partners as more attractive. But the effect lasts longer on guys.

Men base their ratings of a woman's physical attractiveness on her degree of facial symmetry. In a 2008 Brazilian study, intoxicated males were significantly less able to detect asymmetry than were sober ones. That helps explain why hammered men pick up women they ordinarily wouldn't be attracted to.

Similarly, in a 2008 University of Bristol study, both male and female subjects were given cocktails spiked with vodka—enough to make them tipsy but not drunk. Both genders saw opposite-sex faces as more enticing while they were buzzed.

The differences emerged at dawn. By the next morning, while the women's beer goggles had come off, men were still being influenced by their perceptions from the night before. They continued to rate opposite-sex faces as more attractive than they normally would. So even if the woman in bed with you still looks pretty good when the sun comes up, beware: She may not have the same rosy impression of you as she did the night before.

She's Receptive After 2 Drinks Alcohol has a dampening effect on the brain's prefrontal cortex area, which normally controls inhibition, according to a recent University of Helsinki study. This loosening of inhibitions may account for your boosted sex drive after a glass or two of wine.

It's the same for her. Women who drink daily also show more interest in sex than their non-drinking counterparts, according to a 2008 University of Chicago study. So making a pass at the vixen you see in your favorite bar on a regular basis may indeed pay off.

But alcohol's effect on arousal is directly related to the amount ingested. Men show more interest in sex as their blood alcohol levels rise after two or three drinks, says Jeanette Norris, Ph. D., a researcher at the University of Washington's alcohol and drug abuse institute. But when the drink count rises to four or five, most men actually become less randy.

If you're drinking heavily, you're also less likely to be mentally present during sex, and being inattentive to your partner can deep-six a promising encounter faster than Mom walking in on you would.

She Wants You to Wear a Condom The two people fumbling around in bed aren't sharing their true sexual selves—they're just operating with their IQs down about 30 points. A 2007 University of Washington study found that both men and women tend to be more open to having unprotected sex when they drink moderate amounts of alcohol than when they're sober.

"As you become more intoxicated, you have trouble processing as much information from the environment. It's called alcohol myopia," says Norris, the study's coauthor. "If you've been drinking and both of you are very focused on 'go,' you're going to be a lot less worried about whether there's a condom present."

It's worse if either of you is a truly dedicated barfly. Men and women who have a higher dependence on alcohol are more likely to multiply their exposure to risk by going home with too many partners, according to a 2007 Washington University in St. Louis study. "People who are drinking more may not be thinking as clearly about engaging in random sex," says psychologist Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, Ph. D., who conducted the study. "Also, people who drink a lot might have the personality makeup to engage in risky behaviors in general."

To avoid a worst-case situation like contracting an STD or causing an unintended pregnancy, Cavazos-Rehg recommends deciding how far you're willing to go before you pour your first drink—and enlisting some pals to help make sure you don't stray too far from your plan.

She Has Better Sex If You Drink Light drinking can help when the action heats up. That's not because it speeds up the physiological process, but because it can lower the inhibitions you both feel, relax you, and make you less self-conscious, says author and certified sexuality educator Cory Silverberg. But as your blood alcohol level rises, things do start to slow down.

When sober and intoxicated men squared off in a 2006 University of Washington study and were told to get ready as quickly as possible, sober men were able to achieve erections faster than their inebriated counterparts. These lethargic lotharios may have been stymied by alcohol slowing down their nervous system, which controls arousal, says Norris.

"People start out very excitable and social when they drink, but over time there are more depressive effects," she explains, noting that this applies to both women and men.

Those effects may prevent arousal from taking place as quickly as it would have before the booze began flowing. If you can keep your wits, though, you can use this to your advantage by engaging in more foreplay and making sure both of you are having a good time, at the same time, Silverberg says.

She'll Lose Her Inhibitions Sober When it comes to drinking and sex, expectations—not biology—may be the real culprit. "Anthropologists call it the 'think-drink' effect," says Hanson. "If you convince people to falsely believe that they're intoxicated, for example, they tend to become more aggressive and to report more sexual arousal." This suggests that ingrained cultural notions about alcohol's sexual effects actually guide our behavior.

Those kinds of deep-seated expectations are likely to set the stage for what happens in bed later on. "A lot of people don't realize that much of the sexual impact of alcohol is psychological," says Silverberg. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: If you believe alcohol is going to make you more relaxed and experimental, it will. And as long as you maintain this mindset, you'll reap the sexual benefits.

But knowing that your thoughts have more control over your sexual encounter than the beers you just drank can protect you from assuming that alcohol is the crutch you need to have good sex. "Most people are drinking to reduce their inhibitions, but another way to do that is to communicate honestly with the person you want to have sex with," Silverberg says. "You can find other ways besides alcohol to bring yourself to that place where you're not thinking about, 'Is it going to be good? Am I going to perform?' "

If you can reach the sex-and-booze golden mean—judiciously using alcohol to enhance your sex life without depending on it to do that—you'll be well on your way to many happy soused (and sober) sexual encounters.

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